


Children's Rhymes

by dod123



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Characterization practice, No Plot, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-12
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-18 11:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dod123/pseuds/dod123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody know that life doesn't always go according to plan. But what happens when life's plans don't include you?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You are my Sunshine

**You are my sunshine**

Rose is amazingly brilliant. She's smart and funny, even though you're pretty sure a lot of the time she's teasing you. She knows what all of the big words that she uses mean. You guess you have a crush on her. She's pretty and sarcastic but she's still a kid and you know that every once in a while she does goofy stuff, just like you. (She will never beat you at pranking, though.) Rose is good. You like Rose, and even better, you like liking Rose.

**My only sunshine**

It's not that you like Rose any more than you like Dave or Jade, you just like her in a different way. Dave acts so cool when he's just a dork like you and his metaphors are so stupid and convoluted that they make you laugh, and Jade is the best future-telling ecto-sister you could ask for, but Rose is different. She acts so... mature? Stylish? Even when she's just calling Dave names. Her psychoanalyzing everyone, trying to pick them apart and lay their pieces on a silver platter to devour one by one, is endearing to you, though no less terrifying to watch. You'd feel kind of strange if you didn't know that Dave and Jade loved her just as much as you. (In a much sisterly fashion, of course.) Sometimes you're afraid that if you don't watch her carefully, Rose will fall apart into tiny fragments of glass, that maybe she's more delicate than you realize, and she'll crack under her own pressure. You have to keep reminding yourself that Rose is strong and can take care of herself. Besides, you would never let that happen.

**You make me happy when skies are grey**

When Rose had gone grimdark, you had no idea what to do. She wasn't the purple text that used to pick fun at you, she wasn't the server who wrecked your bathroom, but somewhere under the greyness and burbling non-speech, you were sure that there was some tiny spark of Rose in Rose. That's why you kissed her when she died, because even a possessed Rose would have been better than no Rose at all, without Rose you- none of you, you or Dave or Jade- knew what to do and being clueless sucked and maybe Rose wasn't any less clueless than you, but she sure hid it better. And the kiss worked! Rose was real Rose and everything was fine.

**You'll never know, dear, how much I love**

You couldn't tell anyone that you have a crush on Rose. You know none of your friends would actually care, but the thought of Jade giggling conspiratorially or Dave cackling about you letting Rose sink her tentacles into you (along with a million and one sexual innuendos) or heaven forbid what Rose would do... It's easier to just sit your crush out. Besides- how would asking her out even work? _Hey Rose, LOWAS is hopping tonight- wanna check it out?_ No. That's stupid. To date, your crush on Rose has been your best (and only) kept secret and you intend for it to stay that way. Not that it's hard anymore.

**Please don't take my sunshine away**

But they did- someone, something made Rose disappear. Not just Rose even, Dave and Jade, too. All gone. If they weren't your life, they were your whole world and you woke up one day less than halfway through your three year space cruise and they were gone. No sign of them. Their chumhandles didn't exist and nothing turned up when you googled them. Your dad is back and alive and your friends are nowhere. You love your dad but what kind of deal with the devil was made for your friends to be erased? Even your dad had no idea who they were. To him, one day you just woke up with three imaginary friends and, god, he must think you're insane. You haven't sent or received any packages, but you've still got Liv Tyler, a present from your father- not from a boy in Texas who doesn't exist. You remember them, though. Dave Strider. Jade Harley. Rose Lalonde. Did something happen with the Scratch? _Rose would know._ You miss Rose. They took her, your seer, your light, your sunshine, and, now, to make it worse, your father thinks there's something wrong with his son because he woke up on his thirteenth birthday with three imaginary people clouding his head and one hellish children's song stuck in his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you made it through this, I applaud you. Hopefully, with time, both my writing and your eyes will get better.
> 
> It's pretty sure and was meant more for characterization practice than an actual story. And I'm still mad at the ending. I can't find a good way to put it.
> 
> I welcome all criticism, even if it's just about grammar. It's very hard to put the right number of commas in the right spaces.


	2. Little Boy Blue

**Little Boy Blue come blow your horn**

Since you've woken up one month ago, you've been practicing a lot. You're even better on your bass, and you can even play a pretty decent _Hot Cross Buns_ on your flute. For the most part, you try to ignore Little Boy Blue, along with his friends Miss Purple and Knight Red. It doesn't work very well, but most of the time you're too busy sorting out your memories- which ones were from the dream bubbles, which ones were Jadesprite's before you merged, which ones were 'Alpha Jade's.' You pity the owner of the red text, who had a lot more copies of himself running around. (You tell yourself if you don't use their real names it will be easier to forget about them.) (It isn't)

**The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn**

You aren't sure how you have so much food. It's true that your garden is going well, but since you've woken up there have been no airplanes dropping off helpful packages of delicious food. Yet, whenever you check your pantry, it's still chock full of things you never used to get- no matter how much you eat. You've given up on trying to explain the mechanics of the life you're living. You don't even bother to question things any more, like, why your grandfather is no longer stuffed in your living room, or why Bec is just a regular dog now, or why you have an internet connection without GT, TG, or TT and yet you haven't contacted someone on the mainland to get you off your forsaken island. Instead of questioning, you eat and sleep and practice and draw and garden and do science experiments and waste away. You plan on seeing how long it takes to grow your hair to your ankles.

**But where's the boy who looks after the sheep**

You wonder what happened to John. (You admittedly aren't very good at following your own self-imposed rules.) Did John and Rose and Dave all end up back in their homes without the others? Do they remember what happened? Did they forget about you? That would be the worst, you decide, if you could remember them but they forgot you. What if you were the only one that was taken? What if John is still on the ship, and Rose and Dave are still with the trolls? Are they trying to get you back? Are they still able to meet up? Can they still beat Jack? You hate not knowing. You remember you used to be relaxed about this. You thought that everything you needed to know, you'd know when the time was right, whenever that time was, but this is killing you. Maybe even literally.

**He's under the haystack, fast asleep**

Four weeks after you woke up and you don't think of it was waking up anymore. You're sure that if at any point you were awake it was the point where you had friends who cared about you and could see the future when you dreamed. That was when you were awake, not here, where your friends don't exist and your dog isn't magic. You're asleep, you're sure of it. You only hope that if you're asleep, your friends are too, and not something worse, like dead.

**Will you wake him?**

Once you realized you were dreaming, you started concentrating on waking up. Nothing works though. You test everything, trying to find some glitch in the programming of this world, but other than the never ending cabinets everything is fine. The dirt is the same dirt you remember from before you fell asleep. The water is the same water you remember from before you fell asleep. The sky is the same blue, and the pumpkins are the same orange, but don't disappear anymore. The frog temple is empty now, the volcano simply a mountain, but nothing is suspicious. Scientifically, everything is fine. Scientifically, you are the anomaly. You are what's wrong.

**No, not I- for if I wake him, he's sure to cry**

You can't wake up. There's nothing wrong, it's just there's no place for you to wake up to. Little Boy Blue and Miss Purple and Knight Red (names are too painful again) don't exist here and now you're not sure if they exist anywhere else either. (You hope they do, if only for their sakes.) You found a hallucinogen in the water during a chemical inspection. You think. No matter how smart you are, you're still not a professional and ever since you wok up (You're not dreaming. This is the real world. Stop trying to delude yourself.) you've been off your game. You're still fairly certain (actually not all that certain) you've found the hallucinogen that caused you to imagine the prior thirteen years of your life and the next two. (You tell yourself that you aren't using the 'hallucinogen' as a scapegoat.) Your friends, they never existed, you never ended the world, or met space aliens, or became an actual furry, or shrunk and juggled five planets. None of it happened. And now that you're sure, tomorrow you plan on contacting the mainland and getting Bec and yourself off this miserable Island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't like this as much as John. It was okay until the end, I may end up rewriting it. Hallucinogen is such a lame excuse. Really, Harley, come on.
> 
> Dave is up next, but I can't figure out how I want his chapter to go, so it might be a while.
> 
> Again, criticism would be great, I'm not good with gerunds, clauses, or commas.


	3. The Lion and the Unicorn

**The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown**

For the last two months you have been completely out of it. You've been absolutely miserable. You can't look at your collection of dead animals without feeling sick, you can't look at your brother without seeing a sword sticking out of his chest, you can't even rap! You have too many memories crowding your head and it physically hurts trying to sort through them. You suppose it's partly your fault for having so many duplicates running around. You're sure that Bro's noticed something's up. You've run away from all of the strifes he's challenged you to. You stay in your room to hide. You rarely get out bed. At night if he listens carefully he could probably hear you crying through the walls. You'd never describe yourself as someone who cries easily, but then you played Sburb, or more accurately, didn't play Sburb. Then you saw Bro die, and Jade die, and John, and Rose. You saw yourself die. You saw yourself die over and over. You lived too long in the day that never happened, you had too much power and then lost it all. You had your friends and now they're gone. It's tearing you apart.

**The Lion beat the Unicorn all around the town**

You miss Rose. You miss John. You miss Jade. You miss not getting your ass kicked through all seven gates of the medium when you strife with Bro. Ever since you woke up he's lost all mercy. Strifing has been futile, like he can't go easy on you anymore. At first you tried to get better but it was too much. You didn't have the energy to do anything but mourn. Eventually you just stopped leaving your room to avoid the chance of strifing. Bro seemed to realize this at some point and now when you come out of the safe haven of your bedroom you're left alone.

**Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown**

Surprisingly to you, Bro isn't as opposed to his brother becoming a depressed shut-in than you thought he would be. He leaves leftovers from meals on the counter, whether he ordered out or ironically microwaved a frozen dinner marketed for stressed mothers, and lets you steal away with the food into your room when you're hungry without bothering you. Sometimes he'll try to coax you out of your room by ordering your favorites- Hawaiian pizza with all of the pineapple picked off and put on a plate by the side, extra spicy Ma Po Tofu, fish tacos from the one really good Mexican place a couple blocks away. He ignores the sounds of the Gary Jules' version of Mad World wafting through your door. 

**Some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town**

You knew that something was going to give eventually. You weren't the picture of perfect mental health before you played Sburb, you definitely weren't when you were playing, and now that it's never happened you are so far gone that even you can tell that you are a little bit insane. You still refuse to believe you made up three people, a video game, and an entire species of aliens, though. It was not especially surprising when you woke up today and Bro was in your room with a full duffel bag telling you that you're leaving. Okay, it was a surprise. You knew that you had issues, and you knew that Bro knew, and even that Bro knew you knew, but you didn't think he'd be so cold as to kick your ass out onto the streets. Which he isn't. He's sending you to a Psychiatric Treatment Facility. They're going to fix you. You're messed up. They're going to fix you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dave's is kind of 'eh' but I'm not letting myself abandon a fic that so's short it could fit on the end paper of a book. I will finish it and prevail! Comments, concerns, complaints and corrections are all welcome. Feel free to contact me at my tumblr, mwahahachoke.tumblr.com
> 
> Last but not least is Rose, who's chapter I've been the most excited and dreaded for simultaneously.


	4. Mary, Mary

**Mary, Mary, quite contrary**

John Egbert. Dave Strider. Jade Harley. You remember all three of them, but since you woke up at your house instead of on the Asteroid there has been no trace of them. Suffice to say, you have no idea what happened. Waking up, you didn’t realize immediately that anything was wrong, and it was about the time that your mom had called you downstairs for passive-aggressively prepared pancakes that you felt the first gut wrenching tremor. When you sat down across from your mother to eat breakfast, the first normal breakfast in who knew how many days, you couldn’t stop thinking that she was dead and, when you had seen her corpse, you had been possessed by an Eldritch Horror from beyond the farthest ring. You’re sure your mom would be quite interested.

**How does your garden grow?**

You’ve completely rewritten your GameFAQ, though Sburb no longer exists. You’ve also painstakingly recorded the rest of what happened, too, though none of it had happened either. It fills seven pretty purple notebooks that sit on your shelf next to a cast off tome of wizard prose. You no longer concern yourself with trivialities like playing violin or reading large books about magic. You do admit that you have taken to knitting plush dolls- small grey people with yellow horns. You keep eleven of them in a pile in the corner.

**With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row**

You think you have schizophrenia. You think you psychosis. You think you’re delusional. You think you should probably get rid of your DSM-IV. (Where the hell did you even get a DSM-IV?) Every time you find a condition that explains John, Dave, and Jade, you cut it out and put it on the fridge. Your mom’s started a scrapbook. Recently you taped the address of a mental health facility to your door. Your mother retaliated by printing out a terrible quality wizard .jpeg with the words ‘Home sweet home’ written across the bottom. Your mom does not believe that your condition warrants further study. You’ve already started your thesis. You may not enjoy this world, but you have embraced your insanity, and you will make it work for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, this was pretty bad. I enjoyed writing it but it was difficult. At least I can say it's done.


End file.
